Take Me Higher (2 page)

‘Remember me? I’m the man who made your moment of glory possible,’ he reminded her.

What audacity! The velvet trap. How good Ira was at setting it, thought Syrah. She had seen him do it to others so many times and yet she hadn’t seen the one he had been setting for her.

Now it all flashed back to her: how with some people, at their moment of glory, he pulled the rug out from under them and they fell from the very heights he had raised them to. Most of them were never able to recover themselves again, their egos damaged beyond repair. With others he allowed them their moment and then appeared, ready and waiting for the pay-off.

Syrah laughed in his face. He had found her weakness: an ego that wanted a little inflating, a desire to arrange a spectacular air show. Now
she
was supposedly in his debt and
he
was blatant about collecting his dues. But not this time, Ira, and not this girl, she told herself.

He had approached her with an offer she could not refuse: organising, gratis, air shows on a small scale for charitable causes was her contribution to society, her way of giving a little something back for her pampered and privileged life. She wanted this opportunity to plan an air show on a grand scale and grabbed it without a second thought
because of the support and co-operation she knew Ira would give it. He was not a man for half measures.

Now he lifted Syrah off the sand and swung her around several times. ‘You did it! What a show you pulled together. I’m eternally grateful to you. People are raving about the event and large donations are pouring in from the grandstand brigade.’

Syrah was laughing and full of joy at her success. The object of the exercise, after all, had been to raise several million dollars for the less fortunate children of California. Children from poverty-stricken, one-parent homes; abandoned babies and toddlers; the mentally handicapped. She begged Ira to put her down and he did but not before he’d kissed her first on one cheek then the other. The kisses appeared innocent enough but the way he held her, the manner in which his hands roamed over the skin-tight leather of her flying suit, was embarrassing to her. It happened and was over so quickly she was certain no one else had seen his moment of lasciviousness. Syrah very nearly thought she’d imagined more than had really happened. He was so cunning! She stiffened with outrage. Was that to be the pay-off he demanded, a sexual liaison?

Diana had missed nothing of what was going on between Ira and Syrah. She felt quite sick, not jealous but angry with Ira. The joy she had been feeling all day seemed to drain away. She and Ira were estranged – the pain and humiliation he had been causing her for years could no longer be borne. He had expected her to grin and bear his infidelities because he still wanted Diana in his life and home. He loved her more than he had ever loved any other woman and had expected that to be enough for her. Now they were barely on speaking terms because she had finally walked out on him.

Diana managed to keep her emotions under control when he swung away from Syrah to greet her. He took a lock of her hair, held it in his fingertips and, smiling at her, told her: ‘Diana, looking cool and beautiful as always. I miss you.’

Those years of loving him: the wonder and the misery; the womanising and broken promises; his brilliant ruthless wheeling and dealing in business; his generosity and love for her, all flashed through her mind. He had been the most exciting man she had ever known, the only one she had ever lived with and wanted to marry. Diana wanted to
ask, ‘I wonder if that’s true, Ira?’ but thought better of it. She remained silent.

‘No comment?’ he asked.

‘Merely congratulations. What a great day you have given the fund.’

The cold look in his eyes for Diana, the ice that had been in his voice while talking to her, melted away as he turned on his heel to give all his attention once more to Syrah. ‘Let’s go,’ he told her, slipping his arm through hers.

Feeling her friend’s pain, she was reluctant to go anywhere with him. However, believing herself obliged to go to the dinner party arranged at Ira’s beach house for donors, she felt she had little choice but to accompany him.

Removing his arm from hers, Syrah took Diana and Keoki aside and told them, ‘As one of the organisers of this event, I’m committed to this evening at Ira’s house. I have all these fly boys to thank for coming out for me, and, well, those major contributors to the fund deserve some thanks too. But you know who I’d rather be with.’

Diana, having recovered herself, assured Syrah. ‘We know. Go and have a great time, you deserve it. Keoki and I have our evening planned: your house, pizza and chocolate milkshakes, TV, Scrabble, then bed.’

Syrah kissed her son and watched him and Diana walk off down the beach towards her house, Melba straggling behind. She turned to Ira and, slipping her arm through his, told him, ‘You can be so good and generous – and such a shit at the same time. Must you tease Diana with that intimate caressing of her hair, that sexy, husky, just a little desperate “I miss you”, accompanied by a vulnerable look, when you know how she’s struggling to get over you?

‘But that’s you all over, isn’t it? Always give the ladies in love with you a little hope, just enough so they can never really dump you. That calculated iciness in your voice that they can’t bear … oh, you can be cruel! It works on women in love, makes them work harder at loving you, makes them believe there is something more they can do, one little thing and you’re theirs forever. How I hate men like you who manipulate women! If I had been in Diana’s shoes just now and had a gun, I’d have shot you dead, you bastard.’

Syrah wrenched her arm free from his grasp and gave him a withering look. She had no intention of allowing her fury with him to ruin her
day. Having expressed her feelings, she had no need to consider him further. She could deal with Ira.

He grabbed her by the arm and, holding it firmly, told her, ‘I believe you get off on the idea that you would have, but you wouldn’t, you know. The sexual attraction we feel towards each other stops you. I’m on to you, Syrah. It’s not loyalty to Diana or fear that she will discover how much we lust after each other that holds you back. It’s that you’re afraid once you’ve discovered how great sex between us could be that you might fall in love with me. And you don’t do that – fall in love with your lovers – not since Keoki’s father. You fuck your lovers and leave them. You and I are a lot alike except that I’m not afraid to fall in love. At least I loved Diana. Remember, it was she who walked out on our life together, I never sent her packing.’

‘Let go of my arm, you’re hurting me, Ira,’ she told him, anger sparkling in her eyes.

He loosened his grip, very much aware that Syrah’s attraction to him and her constant rejection of his overtures to her had created a love-hate tension between them that had over the years become an obsession for Ira. He wanted to possess Syrah: body, soul, and all she represented – an adventurous and exciting nature, social standing, inherited wealth, a powerful and respected family name. Everything he himself had not been born to.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you or to be so candid. I thought we had become friends?’

‘Friends of a sort. But you won’t accept that. You’ll never accept that that’s all we’ll ever be. I know you, Ira. You’re thinking: “I’ll have her, one way or another. I’ll take possession of her.” But you won’t, you know.’

She smiled at him and thought, It’s like swimming with the sharks.

‘We’ll see. Remember, the opera’s not over until the fat lady sings, Syrah.’

She could not help but laugh then and when she stopped told him, ‘You’re incorrigible!’

‘Well, at least you got that right.’

Dusk was fast approaching, another kind of magic at Malibu made even more so by the line of planes revving motors and taking off one after the other, guests flying home while they still had the light. None
of the excitement seemed to be waning from the day. The very air they breathed felt as if charged with adrenaline. Intoxicated with it and still playing their usual game of love-hate flirtation, Syrah and Ira approached his house. It was large and impressive, considered very grand even by the grandest of Malibu standards. The interior was elegant with his collections of Ming and Tang Dynasty artefacts; eclectic in the way the contemporary paintings – Jim Dine and Warhol, a superb collection of Rothko and Hans Hoffman, Clifford Still, Picasso and Matisse – lived at ease with a Poussin among French commodes, Bergère chairs and contemporary furniture covered in cream-coloured suede.

Syrah could see people milling around the reception rooms, through the open two-storey high French doors. She could hear the faint sound of music: a Debussy duet. It reminded her of the innumerable times over the years that she had enjoyed Ira and Diana’s hospitality here, those days when they were a three or foursome (Syrah was a much sought after date among eligible men). She and Diana, when she was not filming or in a play, had lived a happy-go-lucky existence and had been naive about Ira and how different their ideas were from his on the subject of love and friendship. It had taken years for Syrah to understand that her friend’s lover was a cad and could also be a dangerous man if thwarted.

Once in the house they were swept up by the guests who had arrived before them: men in black tie and dress suits, women beautiful in stunning gowns and dazzling jewels. There were mega-wealthy Californian wives, lovers and mistresses, a smattering of Hollywood starlets, and handsome bachelors ranging from the north to the south of the state, plus the odd South American polo player, Italian count or English earl for added interest and colour. The flying contingency that had come out for the display were yet to arrive but even without them there was a buzz going that guaranteed a terrific evening ahead.

Syrah rose to the occasion and warmly greeted several Napa Valley friends of her father’s, wine barons like Ethan Richebourg and women who had known her since she was a child, fondly considering her a wayward daughter. They all descended on her with praise for her part in the day. A glass of champagne and several miniature blinis later she was shepherded away by Ira, already bathed and changed into his evening clothes and looking particularly handsome and happy. He took
her up the stairs to his bedroom. There, as planned, she found her evening clothes laid out across the bed; she had sent along her dressing case earlier in the day with Melba.

Without a word to her host, and with not a moment’s hesitation, she swept from bedroom to bathroom, closed the door and locked it. She could hear Ira’s laughter through the door. Syrah smiled. It did so amuse her to out-fox his lust. Twisting a towel round her head to protect her hair from the steam, she ran the bath and took her time luxuriating in the almond-scented bath water.

When Syrah emerged, wrapped in a terry-cloth robe, and sat in one of the arm chairs to make up her face and brush her hair, Ira was gone, just as she’d thought he would be. The mischievous, flirtatious side of her nature was just a little disappointed nevertheless.

On went sheer black stockings and high-heeled black satin sandals. She slipped into a halter top, bias-cut, plum-coloured silk taffeta evening dress.

All her attention was concentrated on doing up the clasp at the back of her neck. She didn’t hear Ira slip into the room and only knew he was there when he stepped up behind her and placed a kiss on the small of her naked back, running a pointed tongue down over the swell of her flesh before he pulled up the zip.

Her heart was pounding with sensual excitement but that did not stop Syrah from pulling away from him immediately. ‘Never, Ira!’ she told him as she swung around to confront him.

‘Smart women never say never,’ he told her as he walked around her.

Her dress was bare-backed to just below the waist. He caressed her naked flesh and then, before she realised what was happening, pulled her back against him and held her tight. A knock at the bedroom door snapped her back to the reality of her situation.

She released herself from his embrace and told him, ‘I repeat, never! Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it’s the
very
smart women who know how to say words like “never” and “no” to men like you, Ira. Men who profess to love one woman and want to sate their appetites with another for love of conquest and nothing else.’

The wry smile on his lips and his silence as he walked across the room to open the door annoyed her. It was at that moment that she
realised Ira Rudman would never give up on her. She had been deluding herself that she could swim with a shark like him.

Syrah was standing in front of the long mirror. Making last adjustments to her gown she saw Ira and his houseman, Roberts, reflected in it at the open door. The two men were whispering, both looking very serious indeed. A terrible sense of dread came over her. She placed the palm of her hand over her heart and walked to the door where the men were standing.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘Diana and Keoki are waiting at the front door, insisting on seeing you immediately, Syrah,’ answered Ira.

She felt that something must be very wrong for Diana and her son to be there at all and fled from the room without another word. Her feeling of foreboding was increased tenfold as she dashed down the stairs and through the hall. The party, in full swing now with laughter and music – two pianos and several artists singing Sondheim songs from
Follies
– suddenly seemed like a scene from a nightmare. Several people tried to stop her with congratulations on the air display that afternoon. Her escort for the evening, Diego Juarez, a famous South American polo player who was a close friend and sometime lover, a man who had much in common with Syrah since he was as much a playboy as she was a playgirl and came from as important a wine family as she did, recognised something was wrong when she passed him by without a word. He followed her.

She flung open the front door to find Keoki and Diana standing there just as Ira had said. The look of distress on her son’s face told it all. She patted his head and kissed him several times. With tears in her eyes she addressed Diana. ‘It’s my father, isn’t it? Something’s happened to Ethan.’